Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Security In Iraq, Jan 1-7, 2016

2016
got off to a violent start in Iraq. There was a surge in operations by the
Islamic State. First, the group was trying to make up for the loss of central
Ramadi by carrying out a wave of attacks in western Anbar. It was also
continuing with its winter offensive against the Kurds in Ninewa. That along
with the discovery of a few mass graves with victims of IS led to a bloody week
in Iraq.

There were 150 reported security incidents in the first week
of January. That was the most attacks since the first week of August 2015 when
there were 154. Insurgent activity has been going down across the country since
the start of last year. The surge in incidents was due to the Islamic State
picking up its operations in Anbar and Ninewa. The former was in response to
the loss of Ramadi. The latter was due to a new offensive against the Kurds
that started in December.

There were 808 dead and 421 wounded during the week. Those
were the highest figures since the second week of August when there were 756
killed and 640 injured. The heavy fighting in Anbar and Ninewa along with
several mass graves being uncovered were the causes of those numbers. There
were 510 fatalities in Ninewa, 184 in Anbar, followed by 70 in Baghdad, 23 in
Salahaddin, 8 in Kirkuk, 6 in Diyala, and 6 in Babil.

The dead were made up of 1 Hashd al-Shaabi, 6 Peshmerga, 106
Sahwa, 145 members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and 421 civilians. There
were also 3 Hashd, 82 ISF, 102 Sawha, and 235 civilians wounded.

During the week the Iraqi forces were trying to clear out
the rest of Ramadi. On January
3 it was said that 80% of the city was cleared, and the ISF entered a whole
slew of new neighborhoods and surrounding areas. That include Jamiya,
Thalah, 17th
Street, Albu Alwan, Andalus, Sufiya, Doctors
Street, the Grand
Mosque, the old stadium, Ramadi
Hospital, Mukhabarat,
Albu Faraj bridge, and others. The government claimed it had cleared out half
of those before. Some were never freed, while others IS re-infiltrated into.
The vast majority of the city and suburbs appeared to be cleared, but small
insurgent cells were still running around, with more activity in the north and
east. It will take a concerted effort to wipe out these units and make sure
that IS does not re-assert control over sections in the future.

In response to its loss IS launched a huge number of attacks
in the Ramadi region, in Thar Thar to the northeast, and around Haditha in the
west. That included 84 car bombs and 37 suicide bombers, the vast majority of
which were killed or destroyed. These attacks did lead to a large number of casualties
including 131 ISF and Sahwa killed and 149 wounded. IS surrounded Haditha
months ago and had not made any serious attempts on it for months. Thar Thar is
adjacent to regions of Salahaddin that are still under IS control. In both
cases, the insurgents were either aiming to draw the ISF away from Ramadi or
looking for a target of opportunity where a sudden breakthrough could be made to
claim a victory to make up for its setback.

After Baiji was liberated in October there was a debate
about how important it was to IS compared to Ramadi. There were hardly any
retaliatory strikes by the group after it lost Baiji and the nearby refinery,
compared to an a wave of attacks after Ramadi fell. That seemed to confirm that
the latter was the focus of the group, while Baiji was being used as a
diversionary operation to draw away Baghdad’s forces from Anbar.

A mass
grave in Ramadi was also discovered with 40 bodies in it killed by IS. The
Anbar government claimed the militants killed several hundred before they left
meaning more bodies are likely to turn up in the coming days.

Southern Baghdad remained the main target of IS. There were 19
incidents there compared to 11 in the north, 9 in the west, 8 in the east, and
4 in the center. The Islamic State is active in towns in southern Baghdad,
northern Babil, and southern Salahddin, which it uses as launch pads into the
capital.

Ninewa was the site of IS’s newest offensive against the
Kurds. The militants attacked Peshmerga positions in nine different areas five
out of seven days of the week. Since IS has not been concentrating upon one
specific place it appears that the group is making exploratory attacks in
search of a weak point. The Kurds have dug in positions and can quickly call in
U.S. air strikes so this looks futile.

In the Mosul area IS executed a huge number of people during
the start of January. The group reportedly killed 206 people including 75
members of the ISF and 83
from the Jabour tribe. 288
Yazidis were also found in a mass grave in the Sinjar district. Several
similar sites were found after the Kurds re-took the area. As more time passes,
more of these types of reports are likely.

IS also carried out a retaliatory attack in Salahaddin after
Ramadi. On January
3, 2 suicide car bombs and 7 suicide bombers penetrated the defenses at
Camp Speicher outside of Tikrit and killed 20 police recruits and wounded 17
more. Otherwise, IS operations in the province have fallen off since Baiji
fell.

There were a total of 87 car bombs during the week. 84 of
those were in Anbar in retaliation for Ramadi, again showing how important the
city was to the Islamic State. Of the three others, one was dismantled in
Baghdad, and the two others were used in the Camp Speicher raid.

IRAQ HISTORY TIMELINE

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About Me

Musings On Iraq was started in 2008 to explain the political, economic, security and cultural situation in Iraq via original articles and interviews. I have written for the Jamestown Foundation, Tom Ricks’ Best Defense at Foreign Policy and the Daily Beast, and was responsible for a chapter in the book Volatile Landscape: Iraq And Its Insurgent Movements. My work has been published in Iraq via NRT, AK News, Al-Mada, Sotaliraq, All Iraq News, and Ur News all in Iraq. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 5, Radio Sputnik, CCTV and TRT World News TV, and have appeared in CNN, the Christian Science Monitor, The National, Columbia Journalism Review, Mother Jones, PBS’ Frontline, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for the Study of War, Radio Free Iraq, Rudaw, and others. I have also been cited in Iraq From war To A New Authoritarianism by Toby Dodge, Imagining the Nation Nationalism, Sectarianism and Socio-Political Conflict in Iraq by Harith al-Qarawee, ISIS Inside the Army of Terror by Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassahn, The Rise of the Islamic State by Patrick Cocburn, and others. If you wish to contact me personally my email is: motown67@aol.com